Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

How much more than these sums Saint Mary’s has cost, I cannot say; but I presume they very nearly covered all the original expenses, as Lysons was informed by a most excellent authority—a gentleman, who, in imitation of the manifold offices held by the lord of the manor, was assistant curate, parish-clerk, sexton, and vestry-clerk at the same time [137]—that the total sum expended, amounted to £6000.

So much admired was this church at the time it was built; and so picturesque an object it is said to have been, “particularly from the Oxford, Edgeware, and Harrow roads;” that almost all the periodicals of the day take some notice of it.

The Universal Magazine for January, 1793, gives an engraving of it, and the village-stocks, by Eastgate, from a drawing by Earl; and in the same Number there is an account of the building, in which the first stone is said to have been laid “on the twelfth of August, 1788,” and the consecration to have been “in Easter week, 1790.” Lysons, however, tells us, Saint Mary’s was consecrated on the twenty-seventh of April, 1791; the first stone having been laid, according to him, on the twentieth day of October, 1788. As to the date of consecration, Lysons is certainly right, as most likely he is in the other statement, having had so good an authority as the curate, parish-clerk, &c., &c. to furnish him with these and other facts which occurred in Paddington about the time at which he wrote. On the day this church was consecrated, a sermon was preached in it, and a collection made for the benefit of the Sunday School.

The following description of this church, given by the writer in the Universal Magazine, was, in all probability, nearly correct, when written: “It is seated on an eminence, finely embosomed in venerable elms. Its figure is composed of a square of about fifty feet. The centres, on each side of the square, are projecting parallelograms, which give recesses for an altar, a vestry, and two stair-cases. The roof terminates with a cupola and vane: on each of the sides is a door. That facing the south is decorated with a portico composed of the Tuscan and Doric orders, having niches on the sides. The west has an arched window, under which is a circular portico of four columns, agreeable to the former composition.”

Mr. John Plaw, of King Street, Westminster, is said to have been the architect in this account; but Lysons, and Tennant, say Mr. Wapshot, designed this mixed specimen of Tuscan, Doric, and non-descript architecture.

The European Magazine, not to be behind its contemporaries in delineations of the picturesque and beautiful, has an etching of the “New Church at Paddington” by Malcolm; in which he has also shewn what one of the Paddington ponds, already spoken of as existing in the time of Edward VI, was “in the good King George’s reign.”

The old church and the new church are both engraved in the Gentleman’s Magazine, supplement, 1795. The notice of the church there given, seems to have been taken from Lysons, perhaps it was supplied by him; but there is this additional statement, viz.—that the monuments which existed in the former church were placed in a light vault underneath the present structure.

And this church which has been built but sixty-one years and a few months, has been for the last three or four years in jeopardy—not of falling, but of sharing the fate of its predecessor; the same causes having been at work to effect its dissolution, which led to the removal of the Sheldon church:—viz., a population ill provided with church-accommodation—a new parish church built—architects and builders, anxious to shew their skill, still further—influential inhabitants interested in the furtherance of their schemes, ready and willing to vote the requisite supplies out of their neighbours’ pockets—a tempting piece of ground in the immediate vicinity, “doing nothing”—a notion, in some minds, that sundry reminiscences, connected therewith, might thus be obliterated—and the prospect of an increase in burial-fees and pew-rents.

Fortunately, however, better counsels have prevailed; and this amount of consecrated property is not yet doomed to be destroyed. St Mary’s, though no longer the parish church, is to remain, a standing monument to the erudition of those who once governed Paddington. These guardians of the church and poor, not only knew which way the wind blew without the assistance of a lettered vane; but understood Greek; as the unlettered vane, and the inscription on the façade, testify. But as all the multitude who have attended St. Mary’s since it was built, have not been able to sing, in the original, that song of the heavenly host which contains the essence of Christianity; and as the English church does not profess to teach people unknown tongues, or object to their worshiping God in their own, it would have been as well to have given them some key to those golden characters, which are so conspicuously placed on the façade of this Pseudo-Greek temple. Those who desire, or require a translation to that divine announcement, which has been so long hidden in the original, will find it in the English edition of Luke’s epistle to Theophilus, second chapter, and fourteenth verse.

The church-yard was enlarged, as already noticed, by virtue of the powers of the fiftieth Geo. III., cap. 44. This Act, which was obtained on the eighteenth of April, 1810, states, that whereas the population of the parish of Paddington, hath lately much increased and is likely still further to increase, it is expedient that the Church-yard of the said parish should be further enlarged.” But not a word about the enlargement of the church, or increased church-accommodation, notwithstanding the then present, and future state of the parish, is so clearly seen; and although St. Mary’s could now no more hold one-fourth of the inhabitants, than St. James’ had done. Seven hundred and forty pounds had been for three years the average annual income from this grave-yard; the half of which was received by the curate, to make up for the mean stipend allowed by the rectors; the remaining half being paid to the rectors themselves, for their land; so that to endanger this source of income, was a thing not to be dreamed of. This appropriation of the burial fees, continued till the whole of the church-yard was paid for; since which time the half of the fees has been applied to the ordinary expenses of the church; the other half going, as before, to the incumbent; and this may account for the following entry in the Churchwardens’ account, for 1840.